


Worth the waith

by Onomatopoetikon



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley is a Sweetheart (Good Omens), F/M, Fluff without Plot, Other, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Post-World War I, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Slow Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26271772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onomatopoetikon/pseuds/Onomatopoetikon
Summary: Aziraphale is late in meeting Crowley for drinks in a club. A small disturbance there makes Aziraphale show his protective side, but also awakens some of his insecurities. Very fluffy, just for the feel good of it all.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	Worth the waith

“What's a beautiful lady like you doing, standing here all alone?”  


Aziraphale should not be able to hear the seductive voice from across the crowded room, where some hundred humans are dancing to the deafening music of a large live band, but he does. Being an ethereal entity has its perks, after all, though Aziraphale doesn't usually use them to eavesdrop. Considering who the words are meant for, however, he just can't help it.  


“Oh, I'm waiting for someone, to be sure” Crowley says, her voice rich and velvety. She is dressed up for the night, with her silk-stockinged legs, red and daring high heeled shoes, and wearing a tight, black case of a dress that leaves nearly nothing to the imaginations of the forty or fifty men who have surely drooled over her already. Her customary dark glasses are small and oval, their frame studded with small stones - Aziraphale can see them from here, sparkling in the light from the chandeliers.  


“Whoever it is, he shouldn't keep you waiting” the man says. “Let me offer you my company instead. Would you care to join me for a dance? Or a drink?”  


He is rather beautiful, this man, in the conventional way. Tall, broad-shouldered and fit, and with a handsome face full of clean lines and angles just sharp enough, but not too sharp. Dark hair, almost black, and cut short, in the same barely regulation correct length as every other man freshly out of service in here tonight.  


Aziraphale hesitates behind a pillar. He's in his usual suit, his favourite, even though he knows Crowley thinks it's out of fashion and even though Crowley specifically begged him to choose any other piece of clothing _in the world, angel, there're so many things to choose from, and this is a party, you don't wear your everyday clothes to a party_. Maybe he should have worn something else. Something fancier.  


Not that he would ever appear as dashing as the man courting Crowley just now.  


He sighs.  


“You're right, he shouldn't keep me waiting” Crowley says. “But he's worth waiting for, so if you don't mind...”  


Aziraphale's heart and soul perks right up at that. He has floated several steps towards them before he even realises it has happened, and before he realises that the man is now gripping Crowley's arm in a decidedly un-gentlemanly way.  


“ _Unhand me _” Crowley hisses, dangerously close to non-humanly so.  
__

____

____

“Forget that guy, dance with me.”  


The man pulls at her, down and away from the bar, roughly, heavy-handedly towards the dancefloor. It can only be a moment before Crowley unleashes some hellish miracle and attracts the attention of all of Below's nightshift miracle record keepers (of which there are, of course, more than on the dayshift), and Aziraphale squares his shoulders.  


**“The lady said no.”**  


Maybe he makes this voice a tad louder than strictly speaking necessary. Maybe he infuses it with just a smidge of gate-keeping duties and a flaming sword.  


Crowley's face lights up; the man holding her turns around, still with his hand gripping her wrist tightly.  


“And who are you?” he sneers.  


The face, so handsome only minutes ago, is dark with contempt. For a moment, Aziraphale sees what he sees: a middle-aged, portly man wearing a ridiculously outdated white suit, standing out in all the wrong ways in this crowd of strikingly handsome young men, soldiers and sailors and patriots all drunk as much on their recent victory as on any alcohol.  


He draws a grounding breath.  


“I'm the one she's been waiting for” he says, not quite as loudly, and sounding far calmer than he actually is, “and now, you will kindly let go of her.”  


“ _You-_ ” the man begins, incredulous. “You're...”  


But he falls silent. They have attracted attention: people are watching, muttering to each other, and it is not to this strange man’s advantage. His grip slackens, and Crowley snatches her wrist back. In two steps she has slid up to Aziraphale’s side, one arm around his back, the other on his lapel, cooing.  


“Oh, darling!” It is clearly just for show, for the benefit of their audience, but Aziraphale blushes at the endearment, her hands, the whole display. “You saved me! Please, let us leave this place at once! I wouldn't want to stay another minute, to be molested like this...!”  


“Please, ma'am” a desperate voice says from behind the bar, a voice belonging to an equally desperate-looking man, “if I may-”

Five minutes later, they are in a private booth with a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne, courtesy of the club owner. Crowley is radiating pleasure, sipping from the wide, shallow coupe.  


“It just keeps on getting better, doesn't it?” she asks, smacking her lips together delicately.  


“Excuse me, dear?”  


“Alcohol. It gets better, the humans just keep figuring out how to make it better.”  


“I suppose they do” Aziraphale agrees and raises his own glass. It does taste good. Fizzy, cool, perfectly sweet. He prefers sweet champagne. Secretely, he knows, Crowley does too.  


“What's on your mind, angel?”  


Crowley leans forward on her seat, the stem of her glass caught between her strong fingers. She never enhances her features, either when presenting as male or female, but she is always stunning, and as captivating as a living flame. Aziraphale hasn't been able to properly take his eyes off her for the past six millennia. It would never occur to him to lie to her, even about something like this. Especially something like this.  


“Should I...” he begins.  


Crowley raises one immaculate brow, and takes another sip.  


“Should I change?” Aziraphale blurts.  


“Change?” Crowley frowns.  


“My appearance. Or my presentation? ...my clothes?”  


“What's brought this on?”  


Aziraphale's gaze drops to the table as Crowley’s frown deepens.  


“I thought” he says, “maybe you'd like it?”  


“Only if you want it, angel, you know that.”  


Crowley's hand appears at the edge of Aziraphale's field of vision, seemingly headed for his arm, but she hesitates, stops, and lowers her arm again. Aziraphale doesn’t quite know whether he should be grateful or heartbroken at the absent touch.  


“Angel, if there's something you'd want to change, you can just go ahead and change it. That's the only thing that matters. What you want. If you want it.”  


Crowley is right, of course. Their bodies aren't human bodies, they don't age or regenerate or decay. ‘Body’ is just a shorthand, really. ‘Corporation’ is much more accurate, ‘matter’ perhaps most accurate of all. And Aziraphale controls it, the matter that constitutes his corporation. He can change it at will and at any time, just like Crowley does with hers.  


“I merely thought... maybe you'd want me to be different. Or different-looking, at least.”  


His voice is almost inaudible in the din, even to himself, but of course Crowley picks it up just fine, and she scowls at him.  


“Wait, is it that man who's got you thinking this? Because he was chatting me up?”  


“Well” Aziraphale tries, “he _was_ very handsome.”  


“And an idiot, and a sleazy, brutish bore” Crowley adds. “And a human.”  


“You _like_ humans!”  


“In general, and to hang around with. Doesn't mean I want to go out with them.”  


Crowley rakes her fingers through her hair. It falls down her shoulders in luscious, lazy curls. Just like her dress, her hair is not so much at the height of style as utterly above it.  


“Look, angel” she says, champagne all but forgotten. “I asked _you_ to come out with me tonight, I was waiting for _you_ when that creep showed up, and I'm with _you_ now. You don't have to change for me to want to be with you. I don't want you to change. Just be you, Aziraphale.”  


“Just... be me” Aziraphale repeats faintly.  


“Yeah.”  


“Even if... even if I don't dress up or ask you to dance?”  


“Heaven, yes, Aziraphale.”  


She reaches her hand out again, but not to Aziraphale's hands. She caresses his temple, of all places, and then tugs gently at his hair. It doesn’t hurt one bit.  


“Let's go upstairs” Crowley says. “To the roof. We can bring the champagne and watch the stars.”  


“I don't think we're supposed to-” But Crowley presses her finger to his lips and Aziraphale falls silent.  


“Who cares? Come on. You bring the bottle.”  


So he does. Of course he does. With the bottle in one hand and his glass in the other, he follows Crowley as she weaves through the crowd, her glass raised high in the air and her hips swaying as she moves in time with the music.  


She is gorgeous, all the more so because she doesn't care what anyone else thinks. She looks the way she wants to look, moves the way she wants to move, and doesn't let anything stop her.  


He has always admired that about her. Sometimes to the point of fear.  


“What did I say, angel? Look!”  


Her voice is triumphant as she leads the way through another door, and spreads her arms wide.  


“Well, you were right on the money” Aziraphale says. He knows well enough by now that she wants him to, and this small acknowledgement is honestly the very least he can give her.  


“Nice view, too” she says, walking along the stone baluster. “And no crowd to put stupid thoughts into your head, angel. Top us up?”  


She turns to him and raises her glass, and Aziraphale hurries to fill it, and then his own.  


“Thanks.”  


“No, thank you.”  


“What for?” She looks at him quizzically over the rim of her glasses, her eyes a glint of gold amidst the dark.  


“Standing up for me.”  


“Angel, I'm pretty sure you were the one who stood up for me, down there.”  


He shakes his head.  


“No, you stood up for me, to me. You're on my side even when I'm not there myself.”  


Something about Crowley's expression softens, and she lowers her glass only just so.  


“Aziraphale...”  


In a few fluid movements she has put her glass down on the baluster and closed the distance between them with a single step. One hand is on Aziraphale's cheek, warm and gentle, and the other on his side, demanding him to stay close, and her lips, oh, her lips are on his, soft and eager and all smiles.  


He whimpers, and she laughs.  


“Hold me, angel” she whispers in his ear, “and dance with me.”  


“But there’s no music” he protests.  


“We don’t need music.”  


“I don't know the steps!”  


“No steps. Just follow my lead.”  


She places his hands for him, _your hand here, and your arm around here like so_ , and then takes a first, slow sidestep. He stumbles, but Crowley only laughs and leans her head on his shoulder, her warmth spreading over to him through every point of contact, as they take another step, and another.  


It is awkward and slow, and Aziraphale is reminded again why the expression ‘having two left feet’ resonates so strongly with him (though why it has to be left feet and not right, he still couldn't say). But they do manage to sway their way in a small circle, round and round, and Aziraphale revels in the intimacy of the moment, the sensation of Crowley's body so close to his, utterly forbidden and achingly familiar.  


“Don't ever change” Crowley whispers. “Not for me, not for anyone else.”  


“Thank you” Aziraphale mumbles back. “And, I should say, the sentiment is entirely mutual. You should never change for anyone, either. But…”  


He stops. Crowley raises her head, and despite the night and her dark glasses, Aziraphale knows that their eyes meet.  


“If there's anyone I would change for, it's you, Crowley dear.”  


“Hrghn” Crowley mutters, and her cheeks must colour as she looks away. “I was right, then.”  


“About what?” Aziraphale asks, confused, and Crowley glances back at him again and smiles.  


“That you were worth the wait.”  


Crowley’s voice is just as velvety as when he heard it the first time this evening, but infinitely softer. The words sink into Aziraphale's being and lodge themselves at the very core of his essence. He could discorporate or cease to exist entirely and still, he knows, these words will stay with him until the end of time.  


At a loss for words, he nudges Crowley with his hand and takes a single step. She follows and soon rests her head on his shoulder again, and together they sway, slowly underneath the vast night sky. For all the aeons of time they never knew each other, and all the millennia together here on Earth, Aziraphale agrees: this was worth the wait.


End file.
